Android-powered laptops reportedly coming next year with help from Google

Rumor has it Google will fold its Chrome OS into Android as soon as 2017, but the company could kick off the transition even sooner. A new report claims the search giant will work with hardware partners to produce Android laptops starting next year.

According to Re/code and its anonymous sources, Google won't force any companies to abandon Chrome OS for now. Starting next year laptop-makers will be able to choose between Chrome OS and Android. An earlier report from The Wall Street Journal suggests that by 2017 the two operating systems could be merged into one.

Of course, this won't be the first time we see an Android laptop hit the market. Multiple companies, including HP and Lenovo have tried bringing the mobile OS to traditional computers before, though they never really caught on. Hopefully with Google's support the idea will actually pick up some momentum.

We'd love to see an official update to Android that added multi-window support so you could view two or more apps side-by-side on laptops, tablets and even big-screened smartphones. We're guessing that's what a combined version of Android and Chrome OS will look like, but in the meantime it will be interesting to see how Google begins to bridge the two operating systems starting next year.